“Apple’s mound of cash and cash equivalents continued to scrape the cloudline this quarter, coming in at $268.9 billion in the company’s quarterly earnings report.,” Anita Balakrishnan reports for CNBC.

“Shares popped more than 3 percent after hours, as the market capitalization of the company crested $900 billion,” Balakrishnan reports. “Apple’s cash holdings, now up $7.4 billion from a quarter ago, could become more potent than ever very soon.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook

“A new tax reform plan from House Republicans aims to permanently lower the corporate tax rate to 20 percent, and calls for one-time tax rate of 12 percent on cash returns and 5 percent on non-cash for corporate money repatriated from overseas,” Balakrishnan reports. “‘You want people to use this money in the United States to invest more,’ Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC’s Jim Cramer in May.”

Yeah and a broken clock is “right” twice a day too. Doesn’t mean I’d give a resounding endorsement to broken clocks or Tim Cook 🙂 But…..

I joke a bit because bottom line is you can’t argue the results of AAPL under Tim Cook leadership. I might not agree with many, many operational and executional things….but damn if that stock price makes me shut my pie hole. lol. Now if the stock was underperforming then we’d be having a different conversation and I’m sure shareholders would be calling for his head.

But as long as a stock is giving a consistent and reliable return to investors, its hard to make a solid case for why he should be replaced. And replaced by whom? Elon Musk? I think people pine for another Jobs when that just ain’t gonna happen imo. And Apple is more than just a single person…its an entity of vastly talented and driven people. Lets just hope they don’t replace Tim with a “Balmer” or another sugar water CEO at some point.

A broken clock is right twice a day, but only coincidentally. Hence the irony.

A clock that ticks different, on the other hand, is never in sync with mainstream time, and thus can never be right.

Switching from time to money, which are said to be equivalent in business, Apple is almost always right, from the standpoint of market valuation.

As to botvinnik’s maxims, they are almost always right, when viewed from the proper standpoint. He is grossly misunderstood, and only because of persistent cognitive biases that are amplified through the internet medium. Speakers have the lectern, but listeners have the greater social responsibility.

I do understand where you’re coming from, Sean. But you’re fighting fire with fire. In my view, that leads only to endless flame wars on the internet, to echo chambers, to pogroms and holy war. I don’t personally enjoy that level of engagement. I prefer the Florence Nightingale approach — realism tempered by empathy and informed by statistics. Each of us serves the cause of humanity in the corps of our choosing. I’m not going to try and knock you off your pedestal, if you’ll only return the favour.

Bullying, harrassment and physical attack are much more likely when the social environment says nothing or, worse, overtly supports such behavior. Confrontation is sometimes necessary.

Ted Bundy reported that if a woman resisted his advances – even moderately – he just backed off and found an easier victim.

If the only effect of confronting the vile, shrivel-hearted Belligerent Asswipe is to say to other people that his behavior is not acceptable, that’s good enough. I just wish MDN did more to stop such ugliness.

A broken clock is relative, a so called broken clock going fast enough to stay in one of Earth’s time zones (say on a satellite) will keep broken time and a so called broken time be the correct time for one time zone on the planet all time.

That’s a logical snarl that gives me a slight headache. In my comment, I assumed a broken clock was a stopped clock — one whose hands did not move, that is, it always exhibited the same time, say 10:25. That would make it right twice a day, relative to any normally functioning clock that registered 10:25 am or 10:25 pm. I went on to note that two normally functioning clocks that were not synchronised would never agree, that is, one would be perpetually ahead or behind the other. In my zeal to craft a clever analogy, I overlooked the importance of relative motion — the principle of special relativity itself! Two clocks in relative motion can NEVER be said to agree, whether or not they were synchronised, and whether or not they were even ticking, because observers moving relative to one another can’t agree. Their facts are different even though both are true! It reminds me of political bickering, where facts and truth are relative, and I blame the Universe for that. Maybe God set us all up. Maybe this is God’s Notch.

Agreed. A not inconsiderable skill, and one that has rewarded shareholders richly. But he has also managed to grow and diversify a tech company that was more than thirty years old, and he did it by leveraging the Steve Jobs advantage in any way he could. It’s a stretch to believe that anyone else could have brought Apple to this level of commercial success. But yes, I am among those who prefers the guild days of craft excellence. After saying that I am humbled by the thought that a smaller, more uncompromising Apple would have been bought and partitioned by now.

“Broken Clock” post was good too. Bot can bicker, be a pebble in the shoe, but he brings an awareness/understanding of history that seemingly dwarfs most on the board. I didn’t say you’d agree with his understanding.

Botty is not stupid, merely deluded with a serious case of tunnel-vision.

I do not dispute that he posts some interesting stuff. But his interpretations are so skewed and his posts often so twisted than any value is generally lost to the “cognitive biases.”

This country will either survive Trump and his band of misfit appointees, or it won’t. It may be time for a revolution to clear out the corruption, because Trump certainly won’t. He has simply delivered more slime to the swamp. He is a corrupt and spoiled bully and most of his wealthy cronies wouldn’t notice the average working person if they ran over them then in their Bentleys. There is nothing that I can do about it now. The angry and deluded voters narrowly decided the last election. But the corruption lives on and the fractured Republican Party cannot govern its way out of a paper bag.

If it were not for Executive Orders (most of which have esier been unnecessary grandstanding or more fluff than substance), Even Trump and his WH communications staff would not be able to claim success with a straight face. Of course, mouth puppet Huckabee-Sanders did blatantly lie about Trump’s statement about the American justice system, so anything is possible, I suppose.

It is of paramount importance that all of us strive to understand our fellow citizens. We must live together. What matter that Trump, rather than Clinton or Obama or Bush, or Reagan, obsesses our moral sensibilities? We are men and women, more than we are liberals or conservatives or the rest who don’t-give-a-shit-about-politics.

Every citizen’s opinion matters, just as his or her vote does. Shouting down an opinion you don’t like perniciously manipulates public opinion in a direction you may not like.

“It is of paramount importance that all of us strive to understand our fellow citizens…… Shouting down an opinion you don’t like….”

It’s not a matter of shouting down an OPINION. It’s a matter of confronting his conduct. His standard is to very nastily insult anyone who disagrees with him.

He clearly makes no effort to understand anyone with a different opinion. But I don’t even care about that. I care about the vitiolic venom. I have asked him before to conduct himself like that with a police officer who pulls him over, or his boss, or his major clients, or a irritated 300 lb biker. Clearly he would not open his cowardly asswipe mouth, since there would be immediate and drastic consequences.

Donald Trump has done practically nothing to generate a recovery. The recovery started seven years ago or so after the economic disaster created by the previous Republican POTUS who has apparently disappeared into non-Republican history after less than a decade.

Check the math. Check the plots. The recovery has been on the same trend lines for seven years. But I am willing to bet that the bottom will drop out during the Trump Administration.

Reality is a constraint. (1) “Speaking of most people?” If you look at Botvinnik’s many down-votes on this website, it is an indication of what many people here think of his idiotic posts. (2) “Hate?” Judging from posts I have read, HATE is the operable word. Contempt is a good one, too.

I’m sorry, but that argument doesn’t hold water. The voting system is not a fair gauge of a person. It can and has been manipulated. More importantly, the measure of a man is not his popularity within any self-selected group, else Jesus would have dodged crucifixion.

To the main point, botvinnik garners automatic down votes for all his comments, even innocuous, epistolary, sympathetic or laudatory ones, indicating a bunch of minds snapping shut like steel traps, or the jaws of Pavlovian dogs. In other words, prejudiced, close-minded and possibly self-righteous. And because I point out these things, I too get down-voted. There is a peculiar tyranny operating in this theatre of freedom of expression that seems wrong.

“And because I point out these things, I too get down-voted. There is a peculiar tyranny operating in this theatre of freedom of expression that seems wrong.”

Exactly right and very well reasoned post. I too at times fall under the same down vote insanity, but it means nothing when you know in your heart it’s FAKE and understand why it is happening.

The tyranny you speak of is indeed real. Down votes are like an electronic numbered bludgeon wielded on the sane voices clearly not drinking the kool-aid of intolerant leftists. Certainly for the most part.

The good news, it means absolutely NOTHING and yourself, Botty and many other like minded voices are simply not cowed in any way. As it should be to deal with nefarious motives purposely designed to silence and not enlighten. The saddest part of the whole POINTLESS exercise.

Just looking at my note, the Obama, Senate and House numbers are much earlier, and I added the Trump numbers later. As you can see, the Trump proposal to return foreign income is a higher rate than the ones proposed by the House and Senate.

To be fair, under the Obama admin, everyone proposed tax reform with repatriation; Obama, the House, the Senate, and candidate Clinton. By that time, everyone had already agreed to use repatriation taxes for infrastructure spending to repair highways and bridges. The only arguing was going to be about percentages. In the end, Obama let the fight take place in the next admin.

Okay, I don’t know what Bernie had in mind, but I never really considered him a realistic nominee. Maybe he had something proposed, but I doubt it.

Bernie was robbed. Have you seen the recent news headlines (i.e., Donna Brazile’s book excerpts; Elizabeth Warren).

I believe Bernie would have beaten Trump as a Democratic candidate “outsider”. Personally, I think he is one of the few recent politicians who understands the issues and knows how to think for himself and can identify real solutions to real problems.

Did you see the effective tax rate in Apple’s statement — 25.5%, I believe. I doubt if any corporation pays the full 35%. Most of the tax reform “plan” is smoke and mirrors to distract voters. The actual objectives are the elimination of the estate tax to benefit the rich and the establishment of a lower pass-through rate to benefit the hedge fund folks (which will end up being the biggest tax loophole for thr rich in ages). I suspect that the talk of lowering the tax rate on the top bracket was also just a distraction, and adding a layer of 39.6% back on top was just a fake compromise. Who cares about that rate when you can funnel your profits through the new pass-through at 25%?

Do you get it? This tax reform is really just a tax cut bonanza for the wealthy that will balloon the deficit and the national debt? But the deficit and debt appear entry only matter to modern Republicans when the Democrats are in power. Then the minority Republicans threaten to shut down the government “on principle” because spending is out of control. I cannot understand how so many people can blindly go along with this crap.

Best analysis I’ve read all day. All the talk of capping the mortgage interest deduction and eliminating the local tax deduction are window dressing for the whole raison d’etre of this tax overhaul: an ENORMOUS giveaway to the billionaire class: no estate tax, no AMT, and the creation of a 2% pass-through rate for anyone who can afford to set themselves up as a corporation.

It’s a shameless move by Trump and his backers (Mercer, Kochs, Waltons) who want to enrich themselves and their descendants for generations to come.

Fair share is at least enough to support a family if you’re working full time.

You do realize, I hope, that for the last decades a greater and greater percentage of the total wealth of the country has been going into the hands of the ultrarich. And it’s not because they have been doing any more to get it. It’s simply because of how things are arranged.

The rich have broken the American social contract… the supposed American dream and what was supposed to be the great advantage of the country. Working hard no longer will get you ahead. The middle class is the new poor.

Sorry. Many wealthy people had the lowest-risk approach to wealth management possible — they inherited it.

And let’s not talk about the poor farmers who cannot pass on their farms to their children. Let’s pass a law that family farms can be passed on to family members and defer the tax, sort of like an IRA. Most farmers today are huge corporations.

My parents were dairy farmers in Virginia who ran afoul of commonwealth tax and inheritance law. Consequently they lost the farm; and instead of me and my two sisters carrying forth a family tradition, the oldest became a practicing Pagan in Oregon, the youngest ran off to Canada with a draft dodger, and I became a roving computer consultant with a longing for bygone pastures and a burning desire for some sort of vengeance against corporatism.

It would be easy to write a law to eliminate — or defer — inheritance taxes on legitimate small farms passed on to children.

The problem is that many estate and inheritance tax reduction/elimination laws mostly benefit the wealthy. Yet the politicians always seem to defend such grotesque largesse — hand-outs to the wealthy, including corporate “farmers” — on the poor family farmer. It is a shame.

those not financially endowed, but HAVE risen to the middle class, and above? It’s not a trick question and the people I speak of weren’t extraordinary. You are correct, “just” working hard won’t necessarily bring realization of the Am Dream/middle class, but coupled with truly living with in your means, saving and wisely investing (not necessarily talking about 401K), it can be done. The rich don’t owe those not rich anything. Thinking so is part of the problem.

Tax avoidance ISN’T tax evasion of fraudulent. Only an idiot wouldn’t try to pay the least he can.

I’m not defending the rich…I have issues with million dollar bonuses for failed executives. My point is, this same argument exists here in Canada…but the left fails to realize that the minority of what is classed as ‘rich’ pay over 50% of total taxes. Because you are successful shouldn’t mean you are punished and have to carry the burden of the many freeloaders to society.

NOTE: 70% of aapl is owned by funds (mutual, 401s, pension plans etc) owned by SMALL investors (if you have 401 , pension like teacher pensions chances are you have AAPL), rest divided between small to big investors

Apple is the largest USA taxpayer and pays all taxes on sales in USA in the USA at around 20-30% rate
Foreign income has been taxed overseas and Apple just wants a better rate when bringing back that already taxed money to USA ( lower second round of taxes)

I don’t even want to get into governments wasting tax monies (every city has it’s ‘bridge to nowhere, $300 screwdriver’ politician and contractor tax scandal. A bridge slated to cost taxpayers $30 million in my town is now 110 m and climbing, the ‘oversight’ appointed by the politicians themselves who got tens of thousands for ‘election funding’ from the contractor…).

I believe that Western countries can have TWICE the SERVICES for HALF the taxes Iif politicians weren’t corrupt, stupid or incompetent (citizens already pay income, sales, property . inheritance etc taxes, tolls and levies like carbon tax, shoot in area i pay a “RAIN FALL” tax based on the footage of my roof (for rainwater sewer ‘upgrades’in spite of the fact i live 2 blocks from the OCEAN — the money is actually for that stupid bridge, see above )…. )

The money is overseas because it was earned overseas. The taxes to pay for infrastructure and other government services were already paid in the places where those services were provided. The money has remained there because the US would assess substantial additional taxes if it were sent here, without providing commensurate additional services.

how can you blame those that seek shelter from taxes? I do and I bet you do.
Per the fair share, the rich/super rich already pay a vastly larger percent of their income and percentage of the entire tax pie.

“fair share” is a bullshit term and a bullshit discussion. Society is ARRANGED in whatever way. American society has been arranged to give more and more money to the rich, without them doing anything different. It’s just a matter of getting the regulations and laws they want… and bribing politicians to make that happen. It has little or nothing to do with risking investment or “earning” the money.

What you say is obviously and demonstrably true. Not that mobs of concerned citizens are ever going to mass in Washington demonstrating against the shadow aristocracy. Aristocrats have already taken measures against that eventuality. They wouldn’t care to be taken by surprise like in 1789 in France.

Approximately half of all US citizens do not have the wherewithal to pay a lot of taxes. The bottom of the income earning ladder are those living on welfare and social security, and those who are “dis-saving” …ie, spending down their savings. Why would anyone in their right mind expect these people to be able to contribute substantially to paying taxes the same way, say, wealthy people can?

Here is a classical ethical mind game to ascertain whether or not a society is fair. It is pretty simple, but illuminating. “You may design the social system however you want …except you do not know which member of society you will be.”

Here is the question: would you really want to live as some Americans are forced to live today, working for minimum or low wages, and with no health care, …and expected to pay taxes? I don’t think so.

Payroll taxes are totally unfair to the working class; investment income should bear the same rate of taxation as wages. Or better yet, abolish payroll taxes. And tax all income — from any source, including investment income — the same.

Actually, you are wrong. The economist, Thomas Pikketty, has shown that the more wealth one has, the greater return one can earn and accumulate. For example, economists have shown hat wealthy families in France in Napoleon’s day — that would be the end of the 1700s to the historically challenged — generally remained wealthy to this day. And wealth begins with parents who can pay their kids’ education bills (so no student loans), buy them a car (so no car loan), and help buy them a house (so no excessive mortgage payments). Let alone help them get travel and life-learning experiences, and good first jobs …so they can become “part of the capitalist machine”. It all adds up to wealth making wealth. And poverty … well, not so much. It is not inconsistent, therefore, for the wealth to pay proportionately more than those less fortunate. It is crazy the wealthy are so stingy when they have been so successful. “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” — right ?

Also, no matter how brilliant anyone is, the financially successful are bloody lucky they were born in, educated in, worked in, and succeeded in, a rich country like the USA. Imagine any success story in the USA …if they had been born and lived in, say, Nigeria. Or Yemen.

So, yes, luck has a lot to do with fortune. And only misers would bellyache about paying more in taxes …than the poor.

“And wealth begins with parents who can pay their kids’ education bills (so no student loans), buy them a car (so no car loan), and help buy them a house (so no excessive mortgage payments).”

you are saying this on an APPLE FAN SITE?

Steve Jobs was an unwanted half Syrian White adopted into a working class family where both parents had no college education. It’s true they scrimped and saved to put him into college ( a vow they gave to his birth mother) but Jobs dropped out saying as he wasn’t sure of his direction he couldn’t on good conscience spend his parents money. Then he bumped around, doing odd jobs, the only good meals he had was eating vegetarian food at the local Krishna Temple on Sunday nights. He never finished college.

STEVE JOBS:
“I never graduated from college…my mother never graduated from college and my father never graduated from high school…I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life…I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food”

He stared Apple the most valuable company in the world in a GARAGE.
The rest is history.

so where the silver spoon stuff?

if you think Jobs is ‘so rare’….
Most business owners in USA don’t have a college degree!

CNBC July 2017:

“Entrepreneurs who did not attend or finish college outnumbered those with higher-education degrees across both genders and in every age group included in the CNBC/SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey, except for the 65-and-older category.

Business owners who skipped out on education all shared some common threads: self-reliance, a good idea and a willingness to take risks.”
—–

note: I believe governments should help people like Veterans, the disabled, those struck by natural disasters, but I think people need to also get back to old fashioned hard work and reliance. The pendulum has swung too much for too many in the direction of the ‘sorry me’ attitude and ‘somebody else owes them stuff’. If a person believes that others (rich etc) have power and so much advantage over him, that ONLY people with rich parents etc can make it, he is mentally f–ked, he loses self belief and power. Instead look at rich people and say “I can be there”.

Yes, I am saying it here. If Steve Jobs had stayed in Syria or lived in Nigeria and Yemen, he most likely would never have been able to found Apple. He could never have started Apple in a garage in Syria, Nigeria, or Yemen. And maybe not even in Germany, Italy, or France. Or even Des Moines, Terra Haute, or Cincinnati. It was a garage in silicon valley.

There are huge “network effects” to one’s environment that play a huge rule in wealth creation. Some wealthy people in the US refuse to recognize this fact. They think they did it — made their fortunes — all on their own. And use this (false) belief to justify, for example, paying a lower tax rate than their secretaries.

before calling others wrong, Steve Jobs was born in USA as you mentioned if “Steve Jobs stayed in Syria”

you say “There are huge “network effects” to one’s environment that play a huge rule in wealth creation”

You are just proving my point.

The “network” effects is that the environment in USA (especially in the past) was more conducive than those places you mentioned for people to build companies, for people to ‘make it’, for them to invest (the wealth they’ve created) .

. The problem today as more and more complexities has risen into the business/investment environment, taxes have sky rocketed , it’s harder now to start a business, get capital etc. That’s why Cook etc says thinks like tax need to be fixed.

start making a negative business environment and the country will turn into one of those ‘no so good places’ to start a business . Making the environment bad and SILICON VALLEY WILL GO ELSEWHERE.

COMPANIES, INVESTMENT CAPITAL, RICH PEOPLE AND TALENT CAN MOVE!
I make that all caps as you guys don’t seem to get it.

Burger King has moved it’s HQ to Canada to get a lower tax rate (while keeping it’s restaurants in USA open) . Apple makes TWO THIRDS of it’s profits OVERSEAS. Apple can easily move it’s financial HQ overseas and keep a ‘research centre’ in Cupertino. Investment monies can move to other places like China if the atmosphere for investment in USA turns bad. In the 70s and 80s when unions were so powerful in Britain and rich people were taxed to 90% the economy near collapsed, many talented people simply moved, many to USA (including rock stars like Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart and David Bowie !). GET THAT? Trying to get 90% of their income resulted in getting ZERO.

How do you set ‘network effects’ if you drive all the talent and investment money away? (When those rock stars moved all those businesses and workers like shipping companies, music studio techs, labourers etc that depended on those rock stars disappeared. Just using rock stars as an example, other big businesses moving’s impact can be way larger).

Margaret Thatcher had to cut taxes to create the boom in the following decades.

At the end of the day increasing taxes only effect the working middle class who are stuck in place (can’t move) and don’t get jobs as factories close down. Taxes in UK at the end didn’t impact the rock stars, it just killed all the UK workers that depended on them. The places that had lower taxes and took the Rock Stars got all their advantages of their business.

What you want is an environment (like you described “network effects”) in USA where investment, talent etc want to come and stay, and people open businesses like factories.

sure companies have to pay taxes to pay for roads, infrastructure, but it has to be reasonable and competitive compared to elsewhere.

Not a good analogy. The US Treasury requires US corps to declare what amount of their foreign income they plan to never return to the US. The remainder they must set aside US corp income tax.

US corps hold their foreign earned income overseas, because in the past, Congress has passed a tax holiday. It’s a corporations fiduciary duty to do what is in the shareholder’s best interests. They could be sued, otherwise. Knowing that Congress has passed a tax holiday in the past, means that US corps, will hold their foreign-earned income overseas, in the hope that Congress will do it again. It’s logical.

However, they have to follow US law and declare US taxes on the amount they do plan to repatriate some day. For a company like Apple, they have booked US income tax on about 2/3rd of their foreign-earned income, that’s why their global net effective tax rate is about 26%. If Apple didn’t actually book US tax on that foreign-earned income, their global net effective tax rate would be about 12%.

As for “fair share”, define “fair”. Is it “fair” for a company that makes money in France, to have to pay tax on that income in the US? What does money earned in France have to do with schools, police in the US? Virtually all developed countries use a territorial tax system, where you pay the tax in the country you earn it. That’s the direction the Trump tax proposal is going. Neither party disagrees with it.

Now some people will argue that private citizens that earn money overseas have to pay taxes, and can’t wait, like US corps, so US corps shouldn’t be allowed to wait to pay their taxes. Well, two wrongs don’t make a right. US citizens shouldn’t have to pay US tax on their foreign earned income as well, as long as foreign taxes are paid.

Completely agree. I always laugh when I come back from abroad and Customs wants to know what I bought so they can tax me if it the amount is high enough. Why does our government need to tax something that has absolutely nothing to do with the US? I’ve already paid taxes on the money used to buy anything.

It’s always nice to make money with aapl. Heck, I think several of us were in aapl way back when in the google finance board days. What was that one guy that always hated Apple? Man, he would go nuts when aapl would keep going up. LOL